Durban - Disabled University of KwaZulu-Natal students have told how they rallied to rescue a wheelchair-bound student from a residence where a fire was started during the rioting that swept UKZN.
The students, all women, at the Charles James residence on the Howard College campus in Durban, were close to tears on Thursday as they relived the drama.
All who spoke to the Daily News said there would have been a tragedy had the fire on Tuesday night not been brought under control in time.
They asked to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, while the woman at the centre of the drama has only been identified as Thobeka.
One of the students, who is visually impaired, told how she heard Thobeka's screams from the floor above and hurried to help.
The fire was burning near Thobeka's door. She and others carried Thobeka out of her room, through the smoke, to safety.
"There was a fridge and a mattress kept at the far end of the fourth floor corridor next to Thobeka's room. How the mattress and the fridge were set alight is a mystery. Had the fire not been contained in time, God knows what could have happened," said one student.
The residence houses 68 female students. Some are partially blind, some have hearing and speech impairments, while others are wheelchair-bound.
"It's so scary when you think about it. Whoever is responsible for this knows well that we have different challenges and it would be difficult to escape if the building catches fire. If this was one way of seeking the vice-chancellor's attention, it was a dangerous one that could have resulted in the loss of lives.
"I've since left my room and moved to a friend's place because I don't feel safe here any more," said the student.
She said the corridor was engulfed in smoke when they hurried in to carry Thobeka out of her room.
During the Daily News's visit to the residence, the students said Thobeka had been taken home after the fire. Attempts to reach her for comment were unsuccessful.
Other students said they felt "used" by their colleagues as bait to get attention from the university management.
"Whoever is responsible wanted to make a statement. They could have burned any other residence, but they chose this one, knowing that it's for the physically challenged. What if someone got hurt in this madness?" said another student.
"We don't attend protest marches, not because we are not in support of the students. But how do you dodge police batons if your vision is impaired? How do you outrun the police and security when you are wheelchair-bound? If our fellow students are responsible for this fire they almost killed innocent people," she said.
An officer in the university's Risk Management Services said what happened was unthinkable.
"How do you attempt to burn a place designated for people with different physical challenges? It is imperative that the university, students, police and everyone else work together to solve this mysterious fire," said the officer, who has no authority to speak to the media.
On Wednesday, university spokesman, Lesiba Seshoka, said the mattress was set alight at about 8.45pm.
"The residence is mainly occupied by students with disabilities. Our Risk Management Services were quick to extinguish the flames. There was smoke damage to the rooms and building, and no students were injured. However, in the interest of safety, all students were temporarily evacuated.
"The building was then checked for safety and students returned to their rooms after about two hours," said Seshoka.
The KwaZulu-Natal director of the Association for the Physically Challenged, Lesley Dietrich, said she was appalled at the news.
"These students must be traumatised. How can people be so cruel? I wonder if they knew that they were trying to set alight a building housing some of the physically challenged," she said.
The ANC this week slammed the violence and destruction at the university and compared the torching of the law library on the Howard College campus to the Nazi book burnings.
Naledi Pandor, of the party's national executive committee (NEC), said: "The ANC condemns the destruction of university property and the intimidation and harassment of university leaders as part of student activism around the issue of free university education."
She added: "The burning of books and university infrastructure is reprehensible and has no connection to the calls for free education for the poor."
Pandor said the burning of books was a symbolic act of anti-intellectualism.
"In the 1930s, the German Student Union, a Nazi structure, ran a book-burning campaign, targeting books written by Jews, liberals and communists. It was a prelude to fascism and the Holocaust," said Pandor, who chairs the NEC's sub-committee on education and health. - Additional reporting by Zainul Dawood and ANA
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